A poor girl is helped in the forest by a mysterious child, who gives her a rose and promises to return when it flowers. The rose blooms on the morning she dies. A very short, tender legend about a peaceful passing.
From Grimms' Household Tales. See the whole collection.
There was once a poor woman who had two children. The youngest had to go every day into the forest to fetch wood. Once when she had gone a long way to seek it, a little child, who was quite strong, came and helped her industriously to pick up the wood and carry it home, and then before a moment had passed the strange child disappeared. The child told her mother this, but at first she would not believe it. At length she brought a rose home, and told her mother that the beautiful child had given her this rose, and had told her that when it was in full bloom, he would return. The mother put the rose in water. One morning her child could not get out of bed, the mother went to the bed and found her dead, but she lay looking very happy. On the same morning, the rose was in full bloom.
Public domain. Text from Grimms' Household Tales (Margaret Hunt translation, 1884), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition